Ava
Two weeks later, Eric, Rob, Camille, Amy and Jules help me move into my new apartment in Tribeca.
I got the job I wanted and am due to start at FergusonMain on Monday.
As I can’t bring my car into the city, my parents drive me in, along with the possessions I brought home with me from San Diego.
I stash the priceless boxes full of John’s belongings in my bedroom closet and try to forget about them.
If Eric is curious after I insist on carrying them in myself, he doesn’t say so.
Skylar already has living room furniture, so I decide to keep my things from San Diego, including the bed I shared with John, in storage for now and buy a new bed for my room.
New home, new beginnings, new bed. If my heart breaks a little at the thought of starting over without him, I stuff those feelings into a box inside my heart and seal it up so I can continue moving forward rather than dwelling on the painful past.
When I’m unpacked and settled in, my parents head back to Purchase, and Camille suggests the rest of us hit the town for dinner and drinks.
I invite Skylar to join us. I’ve gotten to know her by text over the last few weeks and have learned she’s focused on her job to the point of distraction. Tonight is no exception.
“I wish I could,” she says, eyeing Eric with barely concealed interest that rankles me for reasons I don’t dare explore too closely.
Apparently, they’ve never met at the firm where they both work.
She’s tall and striking, with dark hair and eyes.
“I have a huge presentation on Monday that I’m in no way prepared for.
I need every minute of this weekend. But you have fun. ”
We say our goodbyes and take the stairs to the street level, making more noise than we probably should.
The Tildens are a rowdy bunch, and my sister fits right in with them.
She and Rob are tanned and happy after their Hawaiian honeymoon and still can’t keep their hands off each other for more than a few minutes at a time.
We bring up the rear, behind Rob and Camille. Eric nudges my shoulder, nods to bring my attention to Rob’s hand on his wife’s ass and rolls his eyes dramatically. Get a room, he mouths.
I cover my mouth so I won’t laugh out loud and nudge him in the ribs. “Stop it.”
“I don’t have to.” He’s been flying high after the firm’s acquisitions committee approved his latest recommendation.
Camille told me he earns a big bonus for a successful recommendation.
He hasn’t said anything about that to me.
In the weeks since we had dinner, we’ve chatted by text almost every day.
I’ve learned that he’s as witty and entertaining by text as he is in person, and I’ve found myself looking forward to hearing from him.
I appreciate that he didn’t doggedly pursue me after our first memorable weekend together.
Rather, he’s allowed a comfortable friendship to develop between us, one text at a time.
I’ve tried not to read too much into the flirtatious banter or the time he spends texting me, but I like knowing that behind the texts is a man who is also familiar with deep pain.
As much as I’d never wish something like what he went through on anyone, it puts us on somewhat of a level playing field, even if he doesn’t know what happened to me, and never will if I have anything to say about it.
Part of me feels like I'm being unfair to him, especially after he told me about Brittany. But I’m accustomed to not talking about John, and I prefer it that way.
At the beginning of our relationship, John told me that due to the sensitive nature of his job, it would be better if I didn’t tell people about us.
I gladly went along with that because I loved existing inside the bubble with him.
I kept my family away by going home a few times a year so they wouldn’t feel the need to come visit me, and I didn’t talk about him with anyone.
With hindsight and tons of research into the lives of Special Forces officers, I realize he was probably part of a unit that wasn’t supposed to have romantic entanglements, and that’s why he asked for my discretion.
That’s just another reason to be infuriated with him and the web he drew me into, knowing it was possible he might have to disappear from my life, perhaps permanently.
I wish I could hate him for that. It would make everything so much easier.
But I don’t hate him. Quite the opposite.
Eric nudges me out of my thoughts. “Where’d you go?”
I look up to see we’ve walked ten blocks from my apartment. “Nowhere. I’m here.”
“Everything okay?”
“Of course.” My new life is falling into place.
I have no reason to be anything other than thrilled by my new apartment, new job and new friends, all of which were the goals when I left San Diego.
But I’m learning that even though I left our old life behind, I brought John with me.
There’s no leaving him behind, as much as I wish I could.
“Sometimes you seem so sad, Ava,” Eric says, his voice low so he won’t be heard by anyone but me. “I wish I knew why.”
His astute observation rattles me. “I…”
“It’s okay.” He puts his arm around my shoulders. “You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone, least of all me.”
I appreciate him more than he could ever know, and when he keeps his arm around me as we walk toward Times Square, I don’t try to shake him off. Why would I when I enjoy being around him so much?
As always, Times Square is a mob scene, and we briefly get separated from the others.
I’m trying to spot them in the crowd when my eye is drawn to a crawler with the day’s headlines.
In bright red letters, I read, “David Dawkins, who lost his daughter and new son-in-law on Star of the High Seas, and family group file suit against the federal government as well as former National Security Advisor Kent Hartley and several other former government officials, claiming they ignored a terror threat in weeks before attack.”
I stop walking so I can keep reading. “Dawkins, the outspoken leader of the SHS family group, says the suit is a class action that seeks answers on behalf of the more than fifteen thousand immediate family members impacted by the terrorist attack on the cruise ship that left four thousand people dead.”
I’ve read about Dawkins. Three days before the ship was attacked, he walked his only child down the aisle at her wedding. From the beginning, his story and that of so many other family members touched me deeply and has stayed with me ever since.
“Ava?”
I look over at Eric and blink him into focus. I can’t believe I forgot where I am and who I’m with as the report about Dawkins takes me right back to day one of the nightmare.
“Are you okay?” Eric’s brow furrows with concern as he takes note of what I’m staring at. “What did it say?”
I force the emotion aside and try to sound matter-of-fact in my reply. “Dawkins and the other Star of the High Seas families are filing a class action against the government and several former federal officials.”
“Oh, damn. On what grounds?”
“They’ve been claiming for years that the government ignored a credible terror threat in the weeks before the attack. They’re going after people who would’ve been in the know at the time.”
Eric’s deep sigh says it all. “Did you know anyone on the ship?”
I shake my head. “Didn’t matter, though. I’ve been obsessed with it ever since it happened.”
“My college roommate lost his brother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was so horrible for their family.”
“So many people were affected by it. When we were kids, my parents took us on cruises all the time. And now…”
“You wouldn’t step foot on a cruise ship if your life depended on it,” he says bluntly.
“Right.”
“Me either. I’ve only been on one, years ago with our grandparents. I felt confined and queasy the whole time. Never wanted to go again.”
I tell myself that it doesn’t count as a lie, because what I’ve told him is true.
We did go on cruises every year growing up.
My mother is a travel agent who once specialized in cruise vacations and got freebies all the time from the various cruise lines.
Her business was decimated by the attack, and she changed her focus to European and Asian vacation packages in the last few years.
Eric doesn’t need to know I have a whole other reason for being devastated by the Star of the High Seas tragedy.
Again, he puts his arm around me as we navigate the crowds in Times Square.
I assume he knows where we’re going, so I let him lead me.
It’s astounding to me that no matter what I do or where I go, the grief and sorrow still find me.
All it took this time was seeing Dawkins’ name and the news of the lawsuit to interrupt what had been another good day.
Will it always be this way? Is there no escaping it no matter what I do?
Sometimes I feel like I’m inside a gilded cage as I lead my nice, quiet, safe life, but I’m surrounded by bars that keep the grief trapped with me.
It’s always there, no matter what I’m doing, who I’m with or how desperately I wish to put the past behind me so I can get on with the future.
John told me every day we were together that he loved me more than anything. If he truly loved me, how could he do this to me? Tears sting my eyes, and it takes everything I have to fight through the emotional overload. I’m done crying over him.
“You still want to go?” Eric asks, tuned in to my struggle.
I force a smile for him and curl my hand around his arm. “Of course. I’m celebrating a new apartment and a new job and your victory at work.”
“You know,” he says tentatively, “I really hope we’re going to be very good friends, and friends are there for each other in good times and in bad. I’d hate to think you were suffering over something and didn’t feel that you could lean on your good friend Eric.”